Dual Reaction
by WallofIllusion
Summary: He hated her. He hated everything about her... :: She was confused. Very confused.
1. Chapter 1

**OKAY, FIRST THINGS FIRST. I AM A TRUSTSHIPPER. _DO NOT_ LEAVE ME A REVIEW SAYING SOMETHING LIKE "omg i no, kiaba totaly hates ischizu, how can ppl evr think their a cople!1!11!" YOUR REVIEW WILL BE DELETED AND I WILL CONSIDER YOU AN IDIOT.**

Now that we have those pleasentries out of the way...yes. As I said on devART, this one of those things that I write, and then I look at it and think, "Am I a Trustshipper or not?". It may not seem like it, but... this scene is why I adore the couple. Just... I don't know. The way they interact there. Half it of it shown (or I try to show it) in this part of the fic; the other half, I hope, will be written tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll manage to convey what it is that I love. Maybe not. Maybe it's all just my insanity anyway.

But I know they're not in love in the series. And what I can't stand is those five-or-so fanfictions that ALL have the same plot--after the duel between Isis and Seto, Seto goes to Isis and, after a bit of preamble, kisses her (for whatever reason) and asks her if she had forseen that. It's been done already and it's cliche. Just stop.

I don't really like any fanfiction that has them in love during the timespan of the series, unless it's really well-written. And I mean REALLY well-written.

Oh! And if any of you are going to protest "That's not what happened in the anime!"... yes. I am aware of that. I'm currently working on a plan to murd--I mean speak with whomever it was that decided to change that for the anime. It's in the manga.

P.S. I don't own YGO. If I did, I wouldn't have let them change that scene.

**

* * *

He Hated Her**

He hated her.

He hated everything _about_ her, from the gold and off-white that she wore to the way she spoke, confident but confidential, impassionate but intimate.

And she knew that—she must have. She must have known that when she met him after his loss to Yuugi, he'd wanted nothing more than to just brush past her without any discussion, without acknowledging her existence.

But she always did command notice.

And maybe, even without her stupid Necklace, she had the power to read minds, because somehow she had known exactly what he was thinking about—Yuugi's chance of victory—had known it would be the perfect conversation starter. Like some insanely specific icebreaker.

The thing was, he much preferred the ice to remain unbroken.

He hated the way she _made_ him stop and think, the way she would come back with sharper words after he brushed her off. He hated the fact that he could read hieratic, and even more, he hated the fact that she somehow _knew_ this. Somehow she _knew_ that it was the best way to make him uncomfortable, the best way to grab his attention because no matter what, he _did_ want to know why he could read a language he'd never seen before, even if…

No, never mind. He didn't want to know _that_ much.

He hated, _hated_ the way she thought, the way she believed that everything was part of fate. The way she believed, even now, that there were some parts of fate that could not be changed.

Like that tablet—a prayer to a friend? Ridiculous. And he'd _said_ that—but she didn't care. (She never cared. Why had he thought this time would be any different?)

He hated how she seemed to know his every thought, his every motive; it was unbalancing, and just as humiliating as having to show his opponent his hand. Didn't she understand that there were rules, unspoken, unwritten rules about how close one was allowed to get when talking to him? Or did she know and just not care?

She irritated him; her soft, even voice often reduced him to shouting threats. He hated the fact that she _could_ do that.

(He hated the pity and understanding her face had shown as she listened to what Mokuba had tearfully shouted, hated that she of all people would be privy to that conversation. He hated the fact that maybe that was his fault.)

He hated that she never showed any response to being goaded or insulted. She always spoke in that calm voice, that flat voice devoid of emotion, no matter what he said to her.

And he hated how she looked when she was in despair.

He hated that that expression had made him stop, had made him catch his breath loud enough for her to look at him again. And he hated how he'd known what _she_ was thinking, what _she_ was planning, and how it had reminded him of a time when he'd had nothing left to lose and had stood on the edge of a tower, far, far above the ground.

He hated the unstoppable empathy he'd felt, the inescapable urge to help her.

He knew, now, that they were similar, that she was all too human—all too like him.

And he hated her for it.

* * *

Sorry for the rant at the beginning (well, actually, I'm not THAT sorry, I've been planning it for a week...), but that's just the way I feel about this couple and how it's written. 

I think it's not... that he hates her, exactly. He resents her, and she pushes too hard and makes him uncomfortable, and to put up a wall he tells himself that he hates her. Which is essentially the mental talk he's having with himself in this fic.

As long as your thoughts do not consist of the example at the top, I would love to hear what you think of this couple (romantic or non-romantic), even if you disagree with me. In fact, even if you do feel similarly to the made-up response at the top, if you can word it nicely and logically, I will be glad to receive your review.


	2. She Was Confused

Hurray, it's Isis's side of H-cubed! I've always loved how confused Isis is at the end of that scene... I'm not sure I did it justice... oh well.

It's review-talk time! Thank you to everyone who reviewed!

**cherry-star-aus**: I'm glad you like it--here's a continuation!  
**Chibi Cheesecake**: They _do_ have great chemistry, don't they? I love watching them interact! ...Isis's first appearance was actually the first episode that I watched and said, "Wow, I like this show." (I had watched a few others, but they hadn't sufficiently caught my interest.) I guess I was set up to be a Trustshipper from the beginning XD;...  
**STUPIDHUMANZZ**: Yeah, I actually used to hate the couple, a reeeeally long time ago :) And--mwahahahaha! I am glad I have begun to convert you! or... something... xD;;  
**Jean-Luc Lover**: That's exactly it--he respected her much more than he expected to, and it completely threw him off :)  
**zucool**: I'm glad you liked it :)

GRR! There are no good smileys you can make without the little up arrow thing above the 6...

Sorry about the title for the whole fic... I was getting desperate to think of one...

**

* * *

She Was Confused**

She was… confused. _Very_ confused.

She'd thought she understood his way of thinking, even though it was so infinitely different from her own—but no.

It seemed that she hadn't understood him at all.

The conversation had not… gone as planned. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost control of the situation, and then… What had really happened then?

Where had all her certainty vanished to, her hard-earned ability to hypothesize his every thought? Of course, some of it was gone with the Necklace, but she'd thought she had retained a little.

No, she _knew_ she had. Hadn't she initially been right about how the conversation would go? She had expected his coldness, had known he'd brush past her, acknowledging her existence as little as possible. And that was why she had planned what to say, why she had created a net made of words from his ancient past:

Peret keltu—a prayer to the dead. The prayer from his ancient self to Yuugi's, the one that predicted their present struggles, the one that expressed a desire to duel both as rivals and as _friends_.

She had tried, over and over, to get him to see that he and Yuugi were fated to be friends. That his hatred for Yuugi was… superficial, caused by this time period only.

But he hadn't _cared_. Maybe, knowing all that she knew, she should have figured out that he wouldn't. She should have realized that his hatred of Yuugi went far beyond the competition they shared in the past—that it had less to do with fate and more with simply the way he _was_.

Because really, she understood that too. As much as his apathy about Yuugi frustrated her, disappointed her—she understood that about him. Really, she'd been able to lay out almost all of their conversation in her head, and when she was honest with herself, she'd known from the beginning that her words couldn't shatter the "sacred" wall he'd built between himself and the outside world.

Maybe she'd even believed that it was hopeless all along.

But… had it been hopeless? Certainly, his assistance to Yuugi had not been won by any of her words, not by her firm insistences of fate or by her soft, almost pleading reminder that Yuugi would lose without his help.

His assistance had been inspired by… something else. But she was bewildered as to what that could have been.

All she knew was that suddenly, just after taunting her helplessness, he had stopped and stared at her, his gaze growing more intense and disbelieving by the second. He had looked shocked, almost… frightened.

She had been frightened too, by the way he'd looked at her. For once, she hadn't been able to distinguish what could possibly be hidden behind his frozen gaze. But he had stared so intensely…

And then he had simply stormed past her, in the direction of the duel stage, offering no explanation but that he was "interested" to see Yuugi duel with only a twenty percent chance of victory.

She'd tried to find the real reason, the motivation behind his sudden change of heart, in his eyes—but he avoided her gaze, even when she desperately cried after him.

She had stayed, frozen, staring blankly for a few moments. Nothing was connecting in her mind—nothing made sense.

She'd thought she could predict him. She'd thought she understood him—but she hadn't.

And now she was confused.


End file.
